In my essays The Oral Exam and A Math Exam’s Hidden Agenda, I gave some examples of math problems that were used during the entrance exams to Moscow State University. The problems were designed to prevent Jewish and other “undesirable” students from studying at the University. My readers might have supposed that an occasional bright student could, by solving all the problems, get in. Here is the story of my dear friend Mikhail (Misha) Lyubich; it shows that being extremely bright was not enough.

Misha passed the first three exams and was facing his last exam: oral physics. He answered all the questions. None of his answers were accepted: all of them were declared wrong. Misha insisted that he was right and requested that the examiners explain themselves. Every time their reply was the same:

This is not a consultation, it’s an exam.

Misha failed the exam. The solution to the last problem was a simple picture: a document that seemed to be impossible to deny, so Misha decided that he had grounds for an appeal. The person in charge denied the appeal. When Misha requested an explanation, can you guess the answer?

This is not a consultation, it’s an appeal.

Misha ended up studying at Kharkov State University. Now he is a professor at Stony Brook and the director of the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Stony Brook.